The Beauty and the Geek
I stood in the living room looking at a picture of myself as a little boy with my parents, "Did you call your father and tell him that he has his first grandchild?" I heard Hotch ask me snapping me out of my thoughts
"I haven't thought about it because I know that he would think that he would deserve to be in my life again so he can be part of his grandchild's life after leaving me when I was 10 years old in a dangerous situation." I told him before taking a deep breath, "If he finds out that I got shot in the neck he would tell me that I should leave the BAU and go into the private sector."
"Your father is the only surviving grandfather that your child will have, and with what happened in Texas you should think about reconnecting with him." He said putting his hand on my shoulder
"I'll think about it."
"Dinners ready!" We hear Liz call from the kitchen, we walked into the room as Jack was finishing setting up the plates.
"Can I sit by you Uncle Spence?" Jack asked me and I saw Liz smile
"Sure buddy"
"So how is it going with the nanny search?" Hotch asked Liz
"Harder then I thought it was going to be, we found a few that are available 24/7 but no one who wants to move in to the pool house, which I understand their hesitation, having to move out of where they live to move into a pool house in some strange married couples back yard."
"Couldn't find anyone who lived close to you?" He asked
"We haven't gotten any so far." I told him
"Well I'm sure you will find someone." Hotch reassured us
"I guess if nothing else I'll just become a stay at home mom" Liz says looking at Alexander who was in his bounce seat next to her
"So I see here that you would always be on call?" Liz asked the nanny we were interviewing
"That's right, I've read about you guys and what you do, I know the schedule is unpredictable and being as I really have no social life I would be here whenever you needed me." The lady tells us
"Okay, and where do you live?" Liz asked and the lady looked confused, "I only ask if you are close or 5 minutes away or.."
"Oh I see, I'm actually right down the street with my grandparents." The lady says and Liz smiles
"Okay since you seem to good to be true you wouldn't mind if we did a background check would you?" Liz asked her
"Oh sure not a problem."
"Do you have anything to asked Spence?" She asked me and I looked at her and back at the lady
"I think you pretty much covered it."
"Okay then, we will get back to you and if the background check comes back good we'll talk. Now you won't actually start for 2 weeks because I'm still on maternity leave." Liz told her and she nodded
"Well I'm available whenever you need me." The lady says to her and they stand up
"I'll walk you out." After I heard the door close Liz walks back into the living room walking up to me, "Am I just crazy or was she to good to be true?" She asked me and I smiled wrapping my arms around her waist
"You're not crazy, well maybe a little," I said with a smile and she smacked my chest, "But you are my kind of crazy and I love you. We'll know more about her once Garcia looks her up."
She kissed me and smiled, "I just...with our job and what we've seen you can never be to careful, makes me paranoid."
"I know sweetie," I say to her and kissed her back, "So since you just laid Alexander down, how about a little mommy and daddy time." I suggested and she wraps her arms around my neck
"Are you suggesting what I think you are?" She asked and I moved my lips to her neck kissing it then brought my lips to her ear
"Yes I am " I whisper in her ear and she misses my lips and I walk us towards the bedroom
"Do you have to go back to work?" Liz asked me as I was buttoning up my shirt, I looked over at her in the bed wearing nothing but the comforter, I really didn't want to leave, I wanted to crawl back into that bed with her.
"As much as I don't want to my parent leave has ended."
She looks at me and pouts, "Alright, I guess I have to let my sexy husband go save the day." She says and bites her lip, god she knows how much I love that.
I walked over to her and pulled her into a passionate kiss, "You are going to make me late if you continue your teasing wife."
"What teasing would that be," She says as she runs her hand down my chest, "Dr. Reid?"
"Screw it." I said and pushed her back onto the bed and kissed her before having my way with her again. This woman is so hard to resist
I walked into the round room and sat down next to Rossi, "Hey, how's Elizabeth doing?"
"She's good" I answered and JJ walked in sitting down on the other side of him
"And Alexander?" He asked me, I pulled out my phone and pulled up the picture I took of him, "Wow, he looks like you."
"Liz thinks so too, I however see lots of her in him."
"Stubborn and strong willed?" Hotch asked me and I smiled
"That too." I tell him and he smiled, I put my phone away and noticed JJ had a wrap on her right hand
"Where are we flying to this time, mama?" Morgan asked Garcia as him and Kate walked in
"Boulder City, Nevada, my vision, home of the Hoover Dam, because police there found the body of a woman, wrapped and weighed down in the water. He apparently likes to freeze."
"I.D. yet?" Rossi asked
"No, unfortunately."
"How long was she in the water?" Kate asked
"Unclear. Her popsicle-ness made it hard to determine an M.O."
"Are we sure this is the unsub and not just exposure?" Morgan asked
"Her blood was frozen in her veins. Temperatures in the area don't get cold enough for that." Hotch replied
"Hoover Dam is not that far from Vegas. Could this be a hit man?" Rossi asks
"No marks on her, though. Hitmen usually leave evidence of an efficient kill." Kate tells him
"No, he did leave a mark." JJ pointed out to her
"Where?"
"Breastbone, above the heart. It's not frostbite. That's an electrical burn." JJ says
"Why introduce electroshock to the M.O.?" Morgan asked
"Believe it or not, hypothermia is a rather pleasant way to die. The cold just kind of puts you to sleep." I tell them
"He wants to prolong what he's doing, so he jolts her back awake." JJ adds
"How did you catch all that?" Kate asked her
"I've seen it before."
"Still no I.D. of the victim?" Rossi asked Hotch who was sitting next to me on the jet
"Garcia's running her markers through ViCAP."
"This unsub went through a lot of trouble wrapping and weighing the body down. Usually it's postmortem gas production that brings a body to the surface, but if you freeze it, it'll rise to the top like ice cubes in a drink." I mentioned
"So he's smart enough to consider the possibility, but not experienced enough to effectively execute the disposal. It's probably his first kill." Morgan points out
"If he went through this much trouble to hide the body, he knows it can be tied back to him." JJ says flipping through photos on her tablet
"Should be easy to find him once we learn who she is." Kate added
"That'll be our first objective when we land. We should also build a suspect pool based on boat ownership. How many boats are there on Lake Mead?" Hotch asked me
"1,908."
"Come on. You just know that?" Kate asked
"Yeah. There are 1,908 boats on Lake Mead." I tell her
"Where did you get that number?" She asked me
"Based on the population density of the area, I...estimated."
"You guessed. I mean, is this guy really a genius, or does he just say things with authority and we all believe him?" She asked looking around at the others
"Oh, wow. Thank you." Morgan says to her and gives her a fist bump, "10 years. It took 10 years for someone to finally have my back. All right, Einstein, she just called you out. Bring it." Morgan tells me
"Look it up."
"I am..." Rossi says looking at his phone, "And the kid's right." He tells them and Morgan sighed as I smiled
"I accept your apology." I say to Kate then look at Morgan holding my fist up, "Blow it up."
"Never." He says and I put my fist down, I hear Hotch psst me and he holds up his fist and I bumped it
"Cloth fibers under her fingernails match her own torn clothing." JJ points out as we lean down looking at the body
"Paradoxical undressing. When your core temperature reaches 85 degrees, your constricted blood vessels suddenly dilate, producing the sensation of extreme heat. You tear your clothing off even though you're freezing to death." I tell her
"What if what the unsub is doing is like the cold water experiments at Dachau?" She asked
"The Nazis wanted to see how long concentration camp victims could survive in the cold and then apply those findings to their own soldiers. How is this the same?"
"It's a test. He wants to see how long you can take it. All right, there's the electrical burns. The ice has melted enough to show us the matching mark." She says and I look at where the burn marks are
"Left anterior axillary line. Is this-"
"Yeah." She holds up her hands indicating a defibrillator, "Clear. It looks like multiple resuscitations. Scar tissue says this was done over weeks, but there's no signs of restraints or binds. She went into that freezer voluntarily. Why would she want this?" JJ asked looking at the body as I answer my phone
"Hotch needs us." I tell her
"Ok. I'm right behind you. I'm just gonna wait for the final M.E. report."
"Thank you for agreeing to talk to us about Sarah." I said to Sarah's friend as we enter the apartment Sarah owned
"Sure. We were good friends through our kids for a while."
"Right now there's an Amber alert out on Bobby, and we're attempting to find the father. Let me ask you this- do you think there's any- " I started to ask her
"He's not in the picture. Never has been. She never even told me his name."
"So why'd she leave this condo and move to Nevada without selling it?" JJ asked her
"I wish I knew. One day she told me she was gonna join a mom group just to get some support. Then, bam, she was gone. I could barely get her on the phone. When I did, she acted like it was a privilege to talk to her."
"Did she talk about the new life path she'd found and that she couldn't really explain it to you because you weren't worthy?" JJ asked
"How did you know?"
"The autopsy revealed something very specific. Whoever had Sarah flooded her system with sugar and electrolytes, but they starved her of proteins. When you don't have protein in your diet, you can't think straight. It's a common tool used in psychological conditioning." I told the lady
"Psychological..."
"Brainwashing." I said
"She didn't join a mom group, did she?" The lady asked us
"No. She joined a cult." JJ tells her
"Based on the physical evidence and the psychological profile of Sarah Rhodes, we believe that a cult operating in the area is responsible for killing her." Hotch tells the department
"There aren't any cults around here." The detective says
"Most people think that, but conservative estimates put cult membership at two million people in the United States. Most of them, like this one, are underground to avoid scrutiny." JJ tells him
"The nature of cults is that they are organized around a charismatic psychopath. This many will be superficially intelligent and charming." Kate points out
"Like Jim Jones at Jonestown and Tony Alamo and Alamo Ministries or Charles Dederich in Synanon, this man will have convinced his followers to sublimate their needs for his own...to the point of self-harm or even suicide." I mentioned
"He preys upon disenfranchised men and women who need help in their daily lives. Sarah Rhodes needed help being a single mom. As of now, we believe her son Bobby is still inside the group." Morgan added
"The way cults work is they break you down both physically and mentally, usually through isolation and deprivation." Rossi says
"We believe that this cult has found a way to speed that up through a near-death experience." Kate tells them
"They lock their members in a giant freezer to induce hypothermia, then they resuscitate them." I brought up
"Why hypothermia?" The detective asked me
"The last stage of cold-induced shock is euphoria, an almost dreamy elation before you fall asleep. When members regain consciousness, they feel like they've been born again. The reality is, they almost died."
"Focus your search on hospital records for patients who suffered from frostbite. We believe that Sarah Rhodes isn't the first victim that this group has harmed. Thank you." Hotch finished
I sat in the chair outside the ladies bathroom at the station, something was going on with JJ, I wanted to make sure she was okay, just then the door opens and JJ walks out, "Hey."
"Oh. Ok. Hi, what's up?" She asked me
"Uh, Garcia found a frostbite victim, admitted to the hospital 3 years ago, by the name of Tom Fallon. Completely off the grid, just like Sarah, but his mother Mary still lives in town."
"Great. Let's go." She says and we start walking
"Kate and Morgan already went when we couldn't find you. Which is why I've been waiting here for 24 minutes and 18 seconds, so that maybe we can finally talk about what's wrong." I tell her
"Nothing's wrong. I'm fine."
"You're not fine. You're obviously displaying symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, which absolutely makes sense. We're coming up on a year since your abduction and torture, and anniversary dates have a power all their own. Not to mention the fact that seasonal weather changes bring back smells that you probably now can only associate with the initial event." I tell her and put my hand on her arm stopping her, "All that I'm saying is that what you're going through is entirely textbook."
"In here." She tells me and we walk into a room and she shuts the door, "Stop it. Stop it. Stop doing that. Stop...being you."
"I can't help it."
"Yes, you can. You can. You think you know what's going on, but you don't." She tells me
"Well, then explain it to me, JJ, because all I know is my friend is hurting, and when I see her in pain, I want to make it stop." It was true, I hated when anyone I cared about was hurting, especially JJ
"All right. All right. Give me a word."
"A word?" I asked confused
"A term. A label. Something that explains what I have, because it is bigger than PTSD, and right now that word is Tivon. Tivon Askari."
"The man who tortured you." I pointed out
"No. No, he was more than that. He was my partner in Afghanistan. I didn't-I didn't know he was a-"
"Double agent. I know. I read the file." I said cutting her off, "You were attempting to extract Intel from a woman named Nadia. He set a trap and killed Nadia and her daughter. Listen, JJ, you cannot blame yourself for that." I tell her and she laughs
"The Humvee, was that in the file?" She asked me
"Yeah. You almost caught him. He set an IED to take out your convoy. I know you were wounded-"
"I was pregnant." She tells me and I feel my heart shatter, I felt like a jerk now, "You see, if I had never gotten involved, Nadia and her daughter would still be alive, and Henry would have a little..." She starts to say while tears fell out of her eyes, "I can't let this go. I can't. What is the word for that, Spence?" She asked me
"I don't know." I tell her and she wipes her eyes
"This stays between us. Ok?" She asked and I nodded my head, "I mean it, not even to Elizabeth."
"Ok." I tell her and she opens the door and walks out
"Where are we on finding the boat?" Hotch asked walking up to me bringing me out of my thoughts, I had been standing there just looking at the board thinking about what JJ told me
"Um... The presumption is that the, um... Cult would have owned the boat. So I'm just gonna look at it from that angle." I told him grabbing some papers off the table
"Is there something I should know?" He asked me
"No. About-no. I'll let you know if I find anything." I say to him and walked away
"Ok, so Garcia couldn't find anything online about the forever people or cults that freeze in general, but she found this guy, Adam Lewis. His parents reported him missing a month ago. If cryogenics is their hook, they should try a lot harder to hide it." Kate tells me and Hotch as we look at the new body
"Technically, it's cryonics and not cryogenics. Cryogenics is a scientifically proven process involving the successful freezing and thawing of materials without damage. Cryonics involves taking an already dead body and putting it in liquid nitrogen, and there's no scientific merit whatsoever." I mentioned to her
"Hiya. I thought you guys were getting cold feet. Oh, pun unintended." Garcia says over the phone
"Garcia, tell us if anyone ordered the following supplies." Hotch tells her and I lean over to the phone
"Besides liquid nitrogen, they need large stainless steel doors for body storage."
"That is a big n-o on all fronts." She tells me
"What about financial overlap? We know that Sarah Rhodes made monthly withdrawals. Did Adam Lewis do something similar?" Hotch asked her
"Uh...Yes. Actually, he did. The exact same amount of money- 260 bucks, to be exact. And he wrote checks. Hello, paper trail. The money went to the Global Warming Awareness fund. That's kind of the opposite end of the spectrum, isn't it?"
"It makes sense. Cults frequently set up nonprofits to hide their earnings from members." I point out
"And you can't apply for nonprofit status without an address. Garcia" Hotch added
"I'm way ahead of you, boss, here it is. I've just sent it"
"We need a stakeout on that house. He said they bring the kids by intermittently." JJ tells the detective and her, Morgan and him walk into the room we're at
"I'll send plainclothes up now." The detective says and leaves
"So now what? We sit back and wait until they bring the kids around?" Rossi asked as she sat down next to him
"Well, they know we've arrested their leader. That's a risky plan." Morgan told him
"Especially since we know Grant isn't the unsub." Hotch adds
"How can he not be our guy? He's the one that shows you the face of god at 30 below." Kate brought up
"He was genuinely surprised when we showed him the crime scene photos." Hotch told her
"I saw that, too. He didn't sanction the murders, which means somebody else did them." Rossi says
" A second-tier member pulling a power play, maybe?" JJ asked
"It'd be easier to shoot them and bury them in the desert. No, this unsub is replicating the cult's M.O. even when he knows law enforcement is watching. Except he's not interested in resuscitating them. He wants to watch them freeze to death. That's his compulsion." Hotch points out
"He'd be a psychrophile, then, somebody with a sexual fetish for the cold." I point out
"So let me get this straight. We're saying that there's a serial killer inside the cult?" Kate asked
"Talk about a needle in a needle stack." Rossi inputted
"You know, you can see why the Forever People would be the perfect fit for him, then. The group would satiate his needs for a while, like a pedophile who resorts to pornography to keep his urges in check, and then when he can't control himself anymore, he kills the members that Colton wouldn't miss, the ones who were trying to get out." I said
"Ok, so let's go with the pedophile analogy. You show them pictures, they get excited what happened when you showed pictured of two frozen bodies to members of that house?" Kate asked Morgan
"Nobody reacted. They just stared blankly. The unsub isn't anyone we talked to."
"Except the kids weren't inside the house. And where there's kids there has to be adult supervision, right? The unsub's watching the children." JJ tells us
"Spence, booster seats." She tells me and I look in the van that's sitting there, "The kids are here." She says and we make our way to the house, "FBI!" JJ yells after the detective knocked on the door and a lady answered
"What are you doing here? This is a private residence."
"Get her out of here." JJ told the detective
"You can't go in there without a warrant."
"Wrong." I tell her and we start looking around and I saw something out one of the windows, "There's a trailer out back." I tell JJ and we make our way out there, "Come on, guys." I say to the kids as we help them out of the trailer
"We need to get them into protective custody." JJ says
"I'll watch over them myself. We need to regroup with the team." I tell her
"Bobby. Where's Bobby?" She asked
"Here."
"Did anyone come looking for you while you were here? One of the new members, maybe?" JJ asked him
"I saw somebody." A little girl told her
"Who'd you see, sweetie?"
"A man, asking about Bobby. Then brother Jon made him go to sleep." The little girl said
"Where's brother Jon now?" I asked her
"Probably back at our house. Where the 5 of us live, I mean." Bobby tells us
"Do you know the address, Bobby?" JJ asked
"Feeling any better?" I asked JJ walking up to her as she gets ready to leave the office
"Sorry?"
"I thought maybe reuniting a family would..." I started to tell her
"Oh... No. I'm glad I did my job, but this doesn't go away because of some surrogate. You know who does think that way?" She asked me
"Serial killers"
"Yeah." She says and started to walk away
"Hey, uh, I couldn't find that word you asked for, but I also didn't want it to be Tivon Askari anymore, so I called Emily. I didn't tell her anything. I just asked her to pull any extra background Intel she could. Apparently people are much more willing to talk about a terrorist once he's dead. Anyway, I put it in your old office in case you wanted some privacy. You don't have to look at it if you don't want. Good night." I tell her and went to walk away
"Spence." she says and I stop and look at her, she looked like she wanted to say something, a part of me knew what she was wanting to say so I nodded my head at her and left
When I got home Liz was sitting on the couch in front of the fire place with Alexander in his bassinet next to the couch, "Hey, how did it go?" She asked me putting the book down, I leaned over and looked at my son who was asleep and I sat down next to her pulling her to my side.
"Long, I'm just glad to be back home, with the both of you." I tell her and she kissed me
"Well we're happy to have you home too, your son missed you."
"Oh yeah?" I asked and she nodded her head, "And how about his mom? Did she miss me?"
"Eh hardly noticed you were gone." She says with a smirk, she squeaked as I moved her so I was laying above her on the couch
"You think you're funny huh?" I asked her and she kissed me
"Of course I missed you, I now know how Savannah and Will feel when Morgan and JJ leave." She says and I looked down, "Everything okay?" She asked and I looked at her, I loved this woman with everything that I am, but I had to keep my promise to JJ
"Everything is fine, I missed you both too, more then you know." I tell her and she kissed me putting her fingers in my hair, just as I was about to move my hand under her shirt Alexander started to cry, "I got him." I told her and kissed her head then sat up grabbing our son out of the bassinet and held him, after he calmed down he looked at me, Liz was leaning her head on her elbow facing us smiling, I have the perfect wife and the perfect son, nothing could make this moment any better. Then I thought about how in just a couple weeks Liz was coming back to work and how hard it's going to be on her to leave him for who knows how many days a week, "Are you going to be okay going back to work?"
"Honestly..no...I can't even leave the room for longer then 5 minutes without missing him, but I know that the sooner I do it the better." She tells me and I look at her
"You can always just quit, stay here with him full time."
"As much I would love that, I love my job, and knowing that you and me are out there making it a safer world for him makes everything better." She says and I kissed her
"I love you, you know that?" I asked her and she smiled
"I love you too, always have and always will." She said and Alexander yawned, "And I love you too my sweet boy." She says running her finger along his cheek
"I love you too Alexander."
A/N: Alright so the first 3 paragraphs to this chapter go to ahowell1993 for being the only one who I got a response for the contest from. Thank you to everyone for you're continued support it means so much to me.